Disabilities act creates obstruction of justices

Making courtrooms accessible for all proves to be a lot harder than some might imagine

April 10, 2004|By Trine Tsouderos, Tribune staff reporter.

In Courtroom 103 of the Skokie Courthouse, justice isn't so much blind as partially obstructed.

When carpenters recently tore out the elevated witness stand to make room for those testifying in wheelchairs, they unwittingly created a new problem: Witnesses sit so low behind the judge's bench and jury box that judge and jurors can't see them.

With a quarter of Skokie's 16 courtrooms in line for a retrofit to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, attorneys and judges howled.

"It was clear that some of the work had not taken into consideration how it would impact the jury or the judge or the witnesses," said Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans.

The snafu at the Skokie Courthouse spotlights a tricky dilemma confronting those who want to make courtrooms ADA-compliant: It's not easy to design a courtroom, and it's a real pickle to design one accessible to all.

The problem of inaccessible courtrooms is so widespread--and so challenging--that the U.S. Access Board, which sets national standards for compliance with the ADA, chose courthouse design as its focus this year. The board plans a fall conference on the topic in Chicago.

The U.S. Supreme Court, meanwhile, is deliberating a case in which two disabled Tennesseans sued the state for failing to make courthouses ADA-compliant. One of the plaintiffs described crawling up and down the steps of the courthouse to make a court appearance.

While nobody has tallied how many courthouses and courtrooms nationwide are inaccessible, "it's a huge problem all across the country," said Jo Holzer, executive director of the Council for Disability Rights in Chicago.

"This should have been corrected many, many years ago. There are a variety of different laws, but even though they are in place, they are not enforced."

The work at the Skokie Courthouse is part of a $13 million effort to make all Cook County public buildings ADA-compliant. The project started with the county's administration buildings and courthouses. In Skokie, changes to the jury box and witness stand were needed in only a quarter of the courtrooms because that's enough to meet the needs of the disabled, officials said.

Across the Chicago area, courts have made varying attempts to comply. In the 18th Judicial Circuit in DuPage County, ADA-accessibility has been a consideration in the design of a new, 200,000-square-foot courthouse annex under construction.

In Lake and McHenry Counties, courthouses in the 19th Judicial Circuit Court have been accessible for more than five years, with accommodations for deaf jurors installed over the last three years, officials said.

Chicago disability attorney Linda Mastandrea, who uses a wheelchair, said she never knows what to expect when she enters a courthouse. Most Cook County courthouses are riddled with problems for the disabled--inaccessible entrances, witness stands, judges' chambers, bathrooms and interview rooms, she said.

"It is very disheartening," Mastandrea said. "It does create a feeling of second-class citizenship, that you are not welcome, that you are not on the same level."

In the Skokie Courthouse, Mastandrea said, some courtrooms are so cramped there is little room for wheelchairs to maneuver. And she must leave the courthouse to find an accessible bathroom. The renovations, she said, are "really long overdue."

Workers plan to return to Courtroom 103 to begin rebuilding the problematic witness platform, making it six or seven inches high, with a ramp leading to it from the judge's chambers. All the work is part of a $500,000 plan to make the Skokie Courthouse ADA-compliant.

In other courtrooms nationwide, officials are struggling to find a good way to comply with the ADA. Part of the problem is that courtrooms are a Gordian knot of design challenges, experts said.

Courtrooms must accommodate a large number of people--the judge, witness, court reporter, attorneys, plaintiffs, defendants, translators and jurors--all of whom need to see each other and move around easily, said Craig Zimring, a professor of architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology who specializes in courtroom design.

Add to those complexities a desire to convey authority and importance through height, Zimring said. The judge usually sits highest, with the witness sitting second highest next to the judge. The jury sits on two levels, often raised off the floor.

"It's just basically a 40-foot by 50-foot room with a narrow range of functions, and you would think we would have solved it. But we have a very complex situation," he said. "And it is even more difficult with the ADA."